Imperium is a vertical scrolling Shooter

Shooter game

Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...

 developed by Vic Tokai

Vic Tokai

is a telecommunications company in Japan providing cable and DSL services as well as network solutions. The "Vic" in Vic Tokai's name stands for Valuable Information & Communication while the "Tokai" is simply the name of its parent company TOKAI, a Japanese natural gas utility founded in 1950...

 in 1992 for the Super NES/Super Famicom

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

 system.

Story

Taking place in the year 2027, Earth is suddenly attacked by the planetoid space fortress Zektron. Many cities are decimated and occupied by the Zektron forces, threatening to annihilate humanity. An underground military squadron and lab develops a small mecha called Dion (Imperium in the US version) aboard the mothership Leinoa, a mecha capable of harnessing great firepower. The human's goal is to send Dion/Imperium into Zektron and destroy it only after the Earth occupation forces have been eliminated.

Gameplay

Imperium differs from most shooters in many ways. There is no high score counter, but instead an experience points counter is displayed. Players earn experience points by destroying multitudes of enemies and the numbers differ depending on the size of the enemy. Players then earn additional weapons and power-ups for each weapon through a set number of experience points. The player has a five-hit life bar. If a player takes a hit, then whatever weapon they were using when they were hit is down graded by one point. Players can replenish health and any downgraded weapon by earning back experience points. The player also has speed-change control, which they can use change the speed of their mech to five different levels. The player has no lives. If the player dies, then it's Game Over

Game over

Game Over is a message in video games which signals that the game has ended, often due to a negative outcome - although the phrase sometimes follows the end credits after successful completion of a game...

. However, they can start on the level they died on by a Continue option that shows up on the main menu after dying. The player however only has four continues.

Region differences

Although the game played out the same and featured similar music and sounds, there are a few differences between the East and West versions:

• Armored Maneuverer Dion featured large level design detail with different backgrounds layered over each other, particularly in level 2 where large construction beams forming squares span over the beach and ocean background. The extra layered backgrounds were removed in the US version Imperium.
• The Wave weapon in Imperium was originally a large fireball weapon in Armored Maneuverer Dion.